Since I,ve join the good folks on Buck Chat " Buckmaster White Tail Mag chat line" along with folks on ICQ that hunt & fish have asked me about were I hunt in Texas.
As a start again I live in Waco Texas and the closes place for me to hunt is about 30 miles south of Waco in a place called Gatesville.
One of the questions I've been asked so many times is " What is a lease"?. A lease is where you pay a farmer or land owner that has deer crossing on their property. Depending on this size of the land and the amount of deer that are in the area is how folks decide on charging a person to hunt on his land.
The cost could be from $ 300.00 up to $1000.00 dollars per season and per person. Some of these folks will build stands in remote areas on their land and may also place deer feeders in areas to draw the deer in. The cost depends on how much work the owner puts into his land, for instance if the person has 100 + acres he may divid the area into 4 - 20 acre spots, he may put in a stand for each location and feeders and charge a large some to re-coop his cost for all these things or he may just show you a area in which the deer travel, bed and feed and leave it up to you as to what you may want to do, you may want to bow hunt in which you may want to install a tree stand or a box stand for either bow or gun hunting.
The lease is good for 1 year in which most folks will let you hunt what is in season for that year or they may just let you hunt only 1 section which means you may only get to hunt deer and if you want to turkey hunt it may cost you depends on the size of the place and how well you know the land owner.
The area in which you want to hunt has to be paid in advance prior to the next season then the owner will take you around the location for you to take your pick in the area in which you want to hunt from. This is were the scotting comes in, talking with the owner to see were the deer have been in the passed, what the kill ratio has been in each are and the size of bucks have been harvested in each area. In most leases the folks that have been there year after year always get their pick 1st unless you get lucky & they decide to give up their part of the lease in which your the next in line.
The average weight of a White tail around these parts is about 110 pounds. The picture above is a location I just look at for the 98 season. The person that took me out to look at this location I work with, the person who had this area gave it up this year and has moved to another lease in fact the person has 2 location that I can pick from and if he can not get the other location sold then he is going to let me have the back portion which is about 30 acres.
The area above was shot was taken from the ground looking right just below a box stand shown below.
